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" I think that you don't really want to write a book that doesn't really move people and doesn't get them to think. "
Hilton Als
Move
You
Book
Related Quotes:
" I used to think that the feeling of alienation that I would have was just me, but I realise that it's also a symptom of the modern world. "
Hilton Als
Feeling
World
Used
" I grew up in a largely black community during the '70s and '80s that scoffed at 'white' music. That music - folk, rock, some disco - was considered soulless, aberrant, just one more example of the Caucasian's desire to scream and yell and demand whatever their privilege and perpetual adolescence dictated they should demand. "
Hilton Als
Community
Black
Privilege
" I'm one of those crazy people who have to write every day. Otherwise, I feel really sort of despondent, and it's because I don't feel very happy about not learning. "
Hilton Als
Learning
People
Crazy
" If you have a word of encouragement, you can do anything. "
Hilton Als
Word
You
Encouragement
" People have a copyright on their own life. "
Hilton Als
People
Own
Copyright
" I think what we're attracted to on the page is something that is very difficult to do in life, which is to examine in what seems like a moment. To examine what we can't do in life very well, which is to be as present and accountable to what an experience is. That's why life is short and art is very long. "
Hilton Als
Moment
Art
Experience
" In the contemporary world, artists are almost entirely self-referential. "
Hilton Als
World
Almost
Artists
" Broadway is not about surprises. It's about rewarding the putrid, formulaic crap that makes Broadway Broadway. "
Hilton Als
Rewarding
Surprises
Crap
" One of the things that's great about writing for a magazine is that every week you get to be a different person. You're writing different things all the time and not slogging along for years on something. "
Hilton Als
Writing
Great
Person
" Dramas about addiction can be exciting to watch. And then dispiriting. Exciting because degradation is fascinating to follow from the relative safety and smugness of an 'appropriate' life, and dispiriting because if all that sad mayhem can happen to this or that character, what's to keep it from happening to me or you? "
Hilton Als
You
Safety
Sad
" I suppose that there are many novels that are set during the summer because it's a lonely time of year. Friends come and go, comfort comes and goes, which makes it a perfect time of year to indulge in melancholia. "
Hilton Als
Perfect
Friends
Comfort
" Julius Eastman is the kind of American genius not enough people know about. "
Hilton Als
Genius
American
Know
" If you want to take writing on, you should pay writing the respect it deserves, which is to say, reading it. "
Hilton Als
You
Pay
Reading
" For black people, being around white people is sometimes like taking care of babies you don't like. "
Hilton Als
Care
Black
White
" I think that writers are best served by sticking to their writing. Not having loads of theories about the best way to position the writing. I think that if the writing is good and the point of view is strong, the writing is going to take care of itself. "
Hilton Als
Best
Writing
Care
" 'Moonlight' undoes our expectations as viewers, and as human beings, too. As we watch, another movie plays in our minds: real-life footage of the many forms of damage done to black men, which can sometimes lead them to turn that hateful madness on their own kind, passing on the poison that was their inheritance. "
Hilton Als
Madness
Men
Black
" Black excellence is a thing. People - from Beyonce Knowles to Venus and Serena Williams to folks you haven't heard of - are into it. It's less a movement than a standard: believers set the bar high not only for themselves but also for others who share their vision, especially when it pertains to black history, stories, and style. "
Hilton Als
Excellence
Style
Vision
" In general, what we really want is a feeling when we read anything that the author has explored the territory as dutifully and as thoroughly as their spirit allows and as their heart allows. "
Hilton Als
Heart
Spirit
Want
" I don't think that there are many, many strong, black male role models who provide a certain kind of really American, Southern-based comfort that Madea grows out of. She's a signpost in our Obama world of traditional Christian values. "
Hilton Als
Strong
American
Black
" I was an actor for a little bit. That's when I started to understand fiction - and that one of the great things about fiction is that you're dependent on the characters as much as they're dependent on you. "
Hilton Als
You
Understand
Great Things
" I think someone like Khandi Alexander, who's now on 'Treme,' is one of the most extraordinary actresses I've seen in years. But she's dependent on someone brilliant like David Simon to realize that and to give her a forum. Tyler Perry's not interested in that kind of nuance because it doesn't sell. "
Hilton Als
Someone
Kind
She
" I love Andre Leon Talley as a person. "
Hilton Als
I Love
Andre
Love
" I didn't like '12 Years a Slave' because it was playing to the Spielbergian model of redemption. "
Hilton Als
Redemption
Slave
Years
" I think, what's the point of writing a book that you would get in one sitting? "
Hilton Als
Think
Writing
You
" I am always attracted to people who are not myself but are. "
Hilton Als
Always
Am
I Am
" It's dollars before art in Hollywood. "
Hilton Als
Before
Hollywood
Dollars
" American musicals are, for the most part, about boys, or boyish pursuits and aspirations - the fantasy of freedom and resolve - and those dreams have little to do with the reality of most black women's lives. "
Hilton Als
Black
American
Freedom
" I believe that one reason I began writing essays - a form without a form, until you make it - was this: you didn't have to borrow from an emotionally and visually upsetting past, as one did in fiction, apparently, to write your story. "
Hilton Als
Writing
Past
Story
" Nothing is more flattering for a writer than when someone knows your work. "
Hilton Als
Work
More
Nothing
" I don't know what else teaches you as much as writing. Perhaps reading. So if I don't have one or the other in the course of the day, I feel old. "
Hilton Als
You
Feel
Day